Arbutus Biopharma and Moderna’s Patent Challenge Arbutus Biopharma (ABUS) is a publicly-traded biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering and developing a cure for patients suffering from chronic hepatitis B infection. The stock has been in the Aggressive Table of the Prohost Portfolio for a while and has recently rallied, doubling and tripling; it continues to soar. Why? Because Moderna (MRNA) has lost in its attempt to …

We have a few small clinical stage firms in the Prohost Portfolio that were established with the goal of designing safer and more effective versions of the very promising CAR T immuno-oncology products. We intend to revisit these firms and see how far they have reached on what can be described as a very hard road towards the realization of these small ambitious firms’ goals. Among …

ProhostLetter #423 TOMORROW’S THERAPEUTICS TODAY For a more or less fair evaluation of biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, analysts currently rely for their assessment on criteria that include quarterly financial results, products’ sales revenues, and year over year growth of each and every marketed therapeutic. When it comes to clinical-stage firms, the logic implies that these criteria cannot be relied on for evaluation, as most of …

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved AstraZeneca (AZN) Checkpoint inhibitor drug Imfinzi® (durvalumab) for patients with unresectable Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease has not progressed following concurrent platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation therapy (CRT). Explaining the importance of this approval, Scott J. Antonia, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Thoracic Oncology Department at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida and investigator …

Prohost Letter #389 Happy New Year 2016 Wishing You Good Health Peace of Mind Love And happiness  We expect 2016 to be the year that fulfills many of our great expectations about successfully managing intractable and life-threatening malignant and non-malignant disease. We expect the biotech firms to bring us more cures based on the maturation of genetic engineering processes following a lot of trial and …

Prohost Letter #388 TOPICS - 1. AN INDISPENSABLE SHORT INTRODUCTION 2. GENE EDITING 3. GENE THERAPY 4. CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY 1. GENE EDITING Exon Skipping: Biomarin (BMRN); Sarepta (SRPT); These firms are waiting FDA approvals for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Gene Editing Technology Competitors: Cellectis S.A. (CLLS); CRISPR; PTC Therapeutics (PTCT) Firms Using Different Approaches For DMD Treatment (see Below) Zink Finger Tech: Sangamo (SGMO); RNAi …